I recently upgraded to a GPS unit that has text-to-speech, which our first one didn’t have. The first one said “In point four miles, turn right.” The new one says, “In point four miles, turn right on highway four hundred forty one.” And that’s not only more information (and I am all for more information), it is, for some reason, continually hilarious to me. I mean, we humans ’round here call it four-forty-one. But ever since the new GPS came to roost on my dashboard, my husband and I delight in asking each other if we’ll be turning on “high-way four hundred forty one.”
It’s true, we are easily amused.
Nonetheless, I still really appreciate the text-to-speech feature on a pragmatic level. Sometimes there are multiple roads, and it’s handy to hear which one you’re looking for.
Today Buy.com has the refurbished TomTom ONE 130S on sale for $75 shipped. It has great reviews both there and at Amazon (where a new one will run you close to $130), and I can still remember when a GPS with text-to-speech for under $100 was just craziness.
You kids today, you have it too easy. You and your highway four hundred forty one. Hmph.
Looks like a great deal. One thing to keep in mind is that TomTom’s Latest Map Guarantee doesn’t apply to refurbished devices (see http://www.tomtom.com/page/refurbs?Lid=4/ ). So the maps you get with it are…the maps you get.
We enjoy being told by TomTom to “take the motorway”. Also easily assumed!
Does yours also have a slight jamaican accent? I love to hear mine tell me to turn onto highway four hundred seventy six…
Ours has a female voice and some of her pronunciations crack me up! (another easily amused one here) Like Ocean Blvd is o-see-an.
They really need HAL 9000’s voice.
We are easily amused by our Tom, also. “Turn left towards Las Veg-ahs”. “Stay on route 93 semicolon state route 95 semicolon…”
On one of the recent updates, they fixed one of our “semicolon” routes and I was so sad 🙁 . But they replaced another with semicolons, so that made me happy.
Oh, and Tropicana is “traPEEkano”–said really fast. ???? that one.
I’m glad we are all easily amused, here. I feel like I’m in good company 😀
The funniest feature of our GPS (and my parents’) is street names that end with Dr. Maybe its just the Canadian database, but I assume that the placement of the “.” is critical. Thus, everyone laughs when told to “turn left on Fort Henry Doctor” … there are a very few other places that have the same effect. Also the QEW (highway … stands for Queen Elizabeth Way) is pronunced “cue” or “q” which amuses me a bit too much.
Funny — we have a 441 in my neighborhood, too.
I miss 441. 🙂 All I have now is M59. 🙁
Just bought one. hope it works!! We used a friends for a trip and loved it.